BOARD OKS SEARCH FOR HIGH SCHOOL SITE.

Byline: Marci Wormser Staff Writer

PALMDALE - Anticipating an enrollment boom, Antelope Valley Union High School District trustees engaged a Lancaster real estate firm to look for a suitable site for the valley's ninth full-size high school.

Population growth is occurring in the southern valley, where administrators suggested the district should buy 65 or 70 acres for a campus able to hold 2,500 students.

``The projections look like we're going to need it to take care of the overload for the schools,'' board president Jim Lott said.

The district will engage Coldwell Banker Bozigian Realty, which is owned by former high school board member Lou Bozigian, a former Lancaster mayor, and his brother Ralph, a former Antelope Valley Fair director.

Although the real estate firm will not be paid for the search, it will get a commission if the district buys the land.

The district's seventh full-size campus, Knight High School, is scheduled to open in fall at 67th Street East and Avenue R-12, and the eighth is proposed to open in 2007 at Avenue J-8 and 35th Street East. But those won't be enough to accommodate all the expected population growth, officials said.

``As soon as we finish the eighth school, we should be ready to start the ninth school,'' Lott said.

Lott said a new school will be needed to meet growth from the 7,200-home Ritter Ranch project proposed in the foothills of west Palmdale. The development has been stalled since the 1990s by bankruptcy and legal procedures, but now companies are competing to revive it.

There are currently about 23,000 students enrolled in the district, Lott said. That number is expected to grow to 30,000 students by 2006.

Trustee Donita Winn said that although a ninth school is needed, there aren't enough funds to build it.

Antelope Valley Union High School District voters last March passed Measure V, a $103.5 million school construction and modernization bond. The high school district also was approved for $71.2 million from Proposition 47, the $13 billion state school construction bond approved Nov. 5 by California voters.

But Knight High School will cost about $65 million, and the eighth campus is expected to cost $70 million to $75 million. The district also intends to build three continuation school campuses, expand Highland High School and do other work at Antelope Valley, Palmdale, Quartz Hill and Lancaster and Littlerock high schools.

``There's isn't enough to fund the school,'' Winn said of the ninth school. ``There is just enough to get started on it.''

Winn said she is unsure as to how the district will fund the ninth school. Attempting to pass a new bond measure has not been ruled out, she said.